Forgotten

Starlight sat in her office in the School of Friendship, minding her own business. She had helped more than a few students that day and she was rather exhausted. Her head was resting on her desk, as she thought about all the potential friendship problems she had helped avert. She wondered how on earth Twilight and her friends did this all the time. After all, she could barely do it for one full day.

She reluctantly raised her head and looked at the calendar on the wall. There were multiple red circles on it, indicating that the day in question was one of particular importance. She saw the dates for the annual Friendship Dance, the annual Carnival of Companionship, and the rapidly approaching Summer Sun Celebration. Ugh! She groaned, Twilight and her friends will be running off to Canterlot on that day while I sit here listening to Trixie's endless complaints about…everything!

She found herself at an impasse on how she felt about Trixie. On the one hoof, she loved and valued her as a very close friend. They had been through thick and thin together and hadn't backed down once. They had gone on tour together, and even fought the entire Changeling hive together. Starlight looked on these memories fondly. But then there were the times where Trixie drove her batty. She couldn't stand the way her friend whined about everything that didn't go her way. Trixie needs a good lesson in the values of friendship and patience! Starlight thought angrily.

Then she looked at a framed picture of her and Trixie that Twilight had taken at the Friendship Dance the previous year. "Oh, who am I kidding?" She asked herself out loud, "Trixie is my friend, and I need to accept that she's never gonna be perfect. But that doesn't mean she couldn't learn to be just a little nicer!"

She got up from her chair and trotted over to another photograph. This one was of her and Twilight and the entire group. She sat on her haunches and lovingly looked at it. Each pony sent a different type of magic flying through her heart, corresponding with the various Elements of Harmony. "Honest Applejack, kind Fluttershy, loyal Rainbow Dash, hilarious Pinkie, generous Rarity…and you, Twilight. You're the most amazing friend a pony could ask for. You'll never be out of my mind…"

She put a hoof over the Twilight in the picture's heart when suddenly, the earth began shaking. Her desk quivered and her books toppled from their place on the shelf. "What the buck is going on?!" She screamed as she dove under a nearby table. She had never experienced an earthquake before, and she had no idea what to do. Her brain was in a shambles as the room turned snow white before everything went black.

When she awoke, she found that she was in a similar looking Equestria, but something was radically different. There was no School of Friendship, nor was there a Castle of Friendship! WHAT IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA'S SUN IS GOING ON?! She screamed to herself. She wandered out of the grassy knoll that used to be the school grounds and noted that the tranquil stream that used to bubble and sigh its way past there was gone as well. "This is too crazy!" She said in exasperation.

She walked into town and passed all of the horrifying things that Twilight had seen. She saw Pinkie Pie bullying foals, Fluttershy being mean to ponies, and Applejack cheating ponies who came to buy apples from her. She saw Rainbow Dash ignore others, and Rarity was going around town bragging about how her latest fashion design was all hers.

"I have to find Twilight!" Starlight suddenly said as she raced through town. She looked in every possible place, and inquired of everypony she found, but none of them had seen Twilight or even heard of her. Instead, she received rude looks from everypony and some Pegasi chased her out of their store, claiming she was a "disgusting unicorn." "I never…!" She said to herself before continuing through the middle of town.

Before she could do anything else, she was suddenly tackled by some incredibly mean looking guards. She was told that she was "the evil Starlight Glimmer" and that she was being taken to prison for as long as she could imagine. Her mouth was open in shock and she couldn't move. They drug her through the dirt to the Ponyville Prison.

Once there, they threw her in a room and went to beating her with whips and chains. She screamed in pain as her blood flew in tiny droplets up against the stone wall. When this method of torture had been completed, they threw her on a table and tied her up. Then one of the guards grabbed her tail and proceeded to yank part of it out. Starlight's shriek could be heard in Canterlot, and she cursed the guards bitterly.

"Oh, come now," one of them taunted, "I thought you believed in the stupidity of friendship!"

"Yeah, well, there's friendship and then there's just plain being evil! You're evil!"

"Nah," he said back, "Sombra says you're the bad pony. We're going to protect Equestria and Queen Celestia from you!"

Queen-? Starlight thought before she felt more of her backside's appendage give way. She shrieked once again, but instead of cursing them, she begged for them to cease. Of course, they laughed this off and ripped her from the table. They threw her on the ground and ordered her to crawl through the dirt and mud.

"Please, why are you doing this to me?" She asked as tears rolled down her cheeks.

"The boss ordered it," the guard stated simply, "now crawl, you worthless piece of pony flesh!"

Starlight crawled her way through the grime all the way to her cell, where she was tossed inside like a rag doll some filly threw away. "We'll see how you like it after you've been starved for a few days!" With that, he slammed the door and locked it tight.

She curled up in the middle of her cell, quivering as she tried to figure out some way to stop her bleeding. She finally remembered her magic and used it to quell the flow. After that, she sat back and began waiting for something to happen. She waited for hours, and those hours quickly turned into days. Her stomach growled as she was kept from food and only shown a little water to keep her alive. Please, she prayed to some unknown force, send somepony…anypony… Then, a couple of days after she arrived there, somepony, or rather some ponies, did show up…